Treasure hunt for 3-5 year olds

[PiperG]

Can anyone suggest how best to do a treasure hunt for my DD's 5th bday party - there will be mostly 5 year olds but a few 3 year olds. So none can read! I need something simple that will keep them occupied for as long as poss (10 minutes?! ) We will be at home, and in the garden ideally (this Sat). It'd be good to keep them out in the garden ... There will also be one 7 year old, so if anyone has any ideas on a more advanced treasure hunt for her, that'd be great ... Many thanks!

what about using photos as clues for the young ones. have a photo of, say, your settee, under one of the cushions hide another photo, say, something in your garden like a unique plant pot, hide another photo in that, eg, the dining room table until they find the end prize. you could mix them with say an object, eg a toilet roll, a shoe, and ask questions like what's this, where wld you find this?, thats the next room to look in?

or a board with photos of objects the children need to find around the house/garden - not too many rooms though, about 10-15 objects such as teddies and toys, then get the children to hunt (ransack) randomly round the room for them. perhaps the 7 year old could keep score of who gets what, ticks them off a list and puts their initials next to the items. mak
e little prizes for everyone, ie and the winner for finding teddy is.... and gets a chocolate medal/sweet. the 7 year old may then feel "grown up" having helped out.

for the younger ones hide laminated pictures - ask each person to collect 5/6 each then exchange for prize

for the seven yr old - hide pictures of symbols, then give them the code cracker - symbols matched to alphabet and get them to crack the code. we did this at my dds 7th birthday as a team game, the first team to crack the code were led to a treasure chest and they got first pick of the goodies.

Thanks all! Twinklytoes for the laminated pics do you give them a card or something with the pics on, which they have to match the pics they find to?

I like the idea of the one for the 7 yr old, sounds great.

I had an idea but wondered if it was too complicated: draw a pic of where the treasure is hidden, then rip this up into 5 or 6 pieces, hide these round the garden, then kids have to find pieces and put them together to make the picture of where the treasure is hidden ... What do you think?